Popular is a system in which a printing machine and a facsimile machine are connected to a LAN (Local Area Network), and a personal computer connected to the LAN can request the printing machine and the facsimile machine to execute printing and facsimile transmission.
In this system, typically, the printing machine and facsimile machine execute and terminate respective processes requested by the personal computer. When out of paper, paper jam or the like occurs, an alarm message is displayed on a display section of the printing machine or the facsimile machine. There is a facsimile machine equipped with a function to provide a facsimile output (printout) of alarm information. A requester who has requested, through a personal computer, the printing machine or the facsimile machine to perform printing or facsimile transmission considers that the process has been terminated properly unless an alarm message is displayed on the display section.
FIG. 24 shows the network structure of a LAN to which a printing machine and a facsimile machine are connected, and FIG. 25 shows the functional blocks of a conventional printing machine. A printing machine 210, a personal computer 211 and a network connection type facsimile machine (hereinafter called "NETFAX") 212 are connected on a LAN 213.
The printing machine 210 has a CPU 221 for performing the general control of the machine, a ROM 222 where a program is stored, a RAM 223 which the program uses as a work area, a printer section 224 which executes a printing process with a printer protocol of an LPD or the like, and a LAN interface section 225 which exchanges print data on the LAN.
The NETFAX 212 has a FAX section which executes transmission and reception processes on print facsimile data in place of the printer section 224. Hereinafter, an information processing terminal through which a requester requests the NETFAX or the printing machine to do facsimile transmission or a printing process is called a requesting node. The personal computer 211 becomes a requesting node.
The requesting node 211 makes a request on a printing process to the printing machine 210, and the printing machine 210 which has received the request acquires print data via the LAN 213 and prints it. Further, the requesting node 211 request the NETFAX 212 to execute facsimile transmission and send facsimile data via the LAN 213, and the NETFAX 212 sends the facsimile data by facsimile to another facsimile machine designated by the telephone number via a public telecommunication network (PSTN).
According to the above-described prior art, however, unless the requester directly goes over to where the NETFAX is located and checks its display section after the requesting node 211 has made a request of facsimile transmission to the NETFAX 212, it is not possible to know if the facsimile transmission has been terminated properly.
Even when a message indicative of abnormality is printed out from the NETFAX, there is a time lag from the point of the request of facsimile transmission to the point at which the message indicating abnormality is printed out and returned. Therefore, it is probable that the requester would not been informed of the event that facsimile transmission has not been made properly for a long time.
There is a case where facsimile transmission having been done should be reported to more than one supervisors besides the requester who has requested the facsimile transmission. In such a case, it would be troublesome to report the result of facsimile transmission to each supervisor or leave a memo describing the result of facsimile transmission to an absent supervisor.
The same inconvenience as would occur in the case of facsimile transmission also occurs in the case where the requesting node 211 makes a printing request to the printing machine 210.
In the case of a printing process, when the print data one has requested is not printed for a long time even with no alarm message displayed on the main body, even if it is a print queuing mode due to heavy queues, the status cannot be known unless it is checked by a queue check command. This requires a trouble of going over to the printer and checking it over and over again with intervals.
Further, since all abnormalities are not displayed on the display section, even when there is a result which one wants to know immediately though it is not displayed on the display section, he may not be able to find out it until the problem is overcome forcibly by reactivation or the like.